


A Beautiful Thing

by imaginary_golux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Consort!Finn, Dread Queen!Rey, Dubious Consent, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Indentured Servitude, M/M, Mutual Pining, Poe Dameron has a thing for TIE fighters, Smut, Vomiting (brief), and no fluffballs are harmed, the violence is very brief
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-10 19:04:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7000912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Poe goes to negotiate with the Independent Kingdom of Skellig and its Dread Queen for help against the First Order, he gets an offer he can’t refuse: all the help the Resistance could possibly need, in manpower and ships and money, in return for Poe himself.</p><p>It seems the Consort has a taste for beautiful things, and finds Poe very beautiful indeed…</p><p>Written for the kinkmeme, and beta by my ever-wonderful Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.</p><p>ON HIATUS INDEFINITELY.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There’s always a price for everything.

Poe’s actually glad, in a sick sort of way, that he’s the one paying this one. Snap has a wife, and Jess is - Poe wouldn’t wish this situation on Jess in a million years - and Kaydel is practically a child, and really, if _someone_ has to pay the price for the Resistance’s victory, well, Poe knew he was going to give his life in service to the Resistance when he joined. This is just a little less...immediate than dying in battle, is all.

He’s going to keep telling himself that until it works.

*

The reason he’s the price - the reason they knew to _demand_ him as the price - is actually because he talks his way out of things so well. If he didn’t, Leia wouldn’t have sent him to negotiate with these people, and they wouldn’t have known he _existed_ , and he wouldn’t be standing here right now, awaiting his fate.

But Leia had sent him to the Independent Kingdom of Skellig because Poe _is_ so good at talking people into things, and Poe had presented his case to the Dread Queen and her Consort as eloquently and persuasively as he could - which is pretty damn eloquent and persuasive - and the Dread Queen and her Consort had taken a day to think about it -

And Poe had been called back into the audience chamber and informed that the Dread Queen would be sending not only ships but troops and money - enough, quite possibly, to win the war entirely.

Poe had started to babble his thanks and gratitude, and the Dread Queen had held up a hand and leaned forward, the tiny smile on her lips suddenly chilling Poe to the bone.

“When the war is over,” she had said, “there will be a price.”

She’d told him the price. And - really - as the price for victory, for this dreadful war being over and the First Order being defeated and the Republic being safe again, it’s a small price. And it’s not as though it would cost the _Resistance_ anything, really. The only person it costs is Poe.

So Poe had agreed.

*

He’d been startled, after that, when they sent him home, back to the Resistance, with an army behind him. They’d waited, patiently, while the war was fought; they hadn’t even insisted that Poe stay out of the fighting, and he’d led his reinforced squadrons to victory after victory. It would have been easy, he thought occasionally, to ‘make a mistake’ and end up dead in battle, his price unpaid - but it would have been dishonorable, too, and when Poe Dameron makes a promise, he keeps it.

So he came unscathed through the war, and when it was over he stayed at Leia’s side long enough to see the New Republic rise again from the ashes, a beacon of freedom and democracy for the galaxy to follow -

And then he’d kept his promise.

And here he is.

*

He’s met at the spaceport by a tall woman of a humanoid species he doesn’t recognize, her green hair in intricate braids, who introduces herself as Mari, Assistant to the Chamberlain to the Dread Queen, and gives a dubious look to BB-8 but doesn’t object to the droid’s presence. Poe is glad. He thinks if BB-8 was taken from him he might actually break under the weight of this price.

“There’s two things you need to remember,” Mari tells him as their speeder makes its way through the capitol’s traffic towards the palace. Poe has, he thinks, managed to charm her at least a little - she’s smiling, at least, which she wasn’t when she met him. “The first thing is that Her Majesty will give her Consort anything he asks for. Period.”

Poe nods solemnly, thinking about the light in the Consort’s dark eyes when he looked at Poe, the way the Dread Queen had smiled at her Consort, broad and sweet, when Poe agreed to her price.

“The second thing is that you do _not_ want to try to assassinate the Dread Queen,” Mari says, and Poe blinks at her in surprise.

“...I...wasn’t planning to?” he says dubiously. “I mean, that’s...why would I be that stupid?”

Mari nods. “Good,” she says. “It...ends messily.”

“...Good to know,” Poe says.

Mari leads him through the palace to what has to be the royal wing, and ushers him into a suite of rooms that could have held most of D’Qar base. Poe gapes at the furnishings: dark wood and luxurious fabrics and the sort of workmanship that costs more money than Poe has ever seen in his life. Mari chuckles at his expression.

“Her Majesty and His Highness would like you to join them for dinner,” she informs him. “Which is in two hours. Perhaps you would like to refresh yourself after your journey?”

“...Yeah, sure,” Poe says, and she leaves him there to find the bathroom and get cleaned up.

The bathroom is just as magnificent as the rest of the suite, with a bathtub big enough that Poe suspects he could swim laps in it, white marble everywhere and more kinds of soap and shampoo than Poe could shake a very big stick at. BB-8 burbles glee at the array of oils and cleaning tools for droids that fill the second shelf, and Poe can’t help smiling at the sight of them. So, whoever stocked this room knew Poe was bringing a droid - or perhaps Mari commed ahead. Either way, it’s a kindness Poe honestly did not expect.

While the enormous bath is filling, he hunkers down in front of BB-8 and tries, again, to explain what’s going on.

“These people won the war for us,” he says quietly. “So I’m...paying them back. It’s a very small price, actually, for what they gave us. So you have to be _nice_ to these people, buddy. Or I’ll have to send you back to Yavin.”

{BB-8 will protect Designation: Master-Poe,} BB-8 insists. Poe sighs.

“Yeah, but in this case, trying to protect me might actually _harm_ me, alright?”

BB-8 whirls in a frustrated little circle. {BB-8 will not harm Designation: Nasty People.}

Poe rubs his forehead and hopes the Dread Queen and her Consort don’t understand Binary. “Good enough,” he says wearily. It’s as good as he’s going to get, anyhow.

The bath is just as luxurious as it looks, the water hot and delightful, the shampoo Poe chooses scented faintly with vanilla. And when Poe comes out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, it’s to find that someone has laid out clothes for him on the enormous bed, underclothes and beige pants and a flowing tunic in a deep and lovely green.

“Guess they want me to look nice,” he murmurs to BB-8, who beeps worry and spins in little circles as Poe gets dressed. The clothing is soft and heavy, some of the nicest stuff Poe’s ever worn, and he glances in the mirror to see that yeah, he looks pretty good.

Looks like a gift fit for a Consort, even.

He’s got a little time left before dinner, and he uses it to sit down and put an arm around BB-8’s warm metal and hum, quietly, old lullabies that he and BB-8 will sometimes sing to each other when they’re up in the black of space with no one around to hear.

*

Mari knocks on the door and looks him over when he answers, then nods approvingly and leads him through broad corridors to the dining hall. Poe notes that everyone he passes looks healthy and happy and perfectly comfortable here, the servants chatting with each other and the nobles nodding politely at Mari and giving Poe curious looks.

Well, he already knew the Dread Queen and her Consort were a well-loved pair of monarchs, from talking to the fighters who came to reinforce the Resistance. They spoke of their queen and her partner with a sort of respectful affection, called her the Dread Queen without any actual _fear_ in their voices, spoke of the kindness and patience of her Consort with easy smiles.

Poe knows very little about the Dread Queen and her Consort, actually, apart from the fact that they are very beautiful - that was hard to miss, standing in front of them while he made his plea for assistance - and apparently very good at their jobs. There’s a rumor that the Dread Queen used to be a scavenger on Jakku, that the quarterstaff which serves as her scepter has seen use as a weapon ere now; and Poe knows that she took over this kingdom by killing the previous monarch, though he’s not clear on the exact circumstances. Where the Consort came from is even less clear. But they’ve built the kingdom of Skellig from a backwater to a major military power in the galaxy - more so now with the defeat of the First Order - and so Poe assumes they’re as canny and ruthless as any rulers have to be.

And there is that warning from Mari about assassination attempts, which implies that they’ve _happened_ before...and that the Dread Queen and her Consort stopped them. Permanently.

Okay then.

Poe takes a deep breath as the door to the dining room opens, and blinks in surprise to find that the table inside is a small one, the only people seated at it the Dread Queen and her Consort themselves. There is one more chair, clearly meant for Poe. A private dinner. Well, that’s only going to be a _little_ nerve-wracking. Poe tries to look confident and unafraid as he takes the empty chair, pats BB-8 on the head as the little droid whirs into place beside him.

To the astonishment of both Poe and BB-8, the Dread Queen leans around the table to look down at BB-8 and says, delighted, “I’ve never seen someone like you before!”

“It’s...one-of-a-kind,” Poe says, throat suddenly dry: what if she takes BB-8 from him? That’s something he didn’t even know to worry about! Shit, shit, this could all go so wrong so fast -

“So you are,” the Dread Queen says, still smiling at BB-8. “What’s your name?”

{Designation: BB-8,} the little droid whistles back. The Dread Queen nods politely.

“Well, I’m Rey,” she tells it. “And this is my Consort, Finn. We’re both pleased to meet you.”

BB-8 rocks back and forth for a moment, then beeps determinedly: {BB-8 will protect Designation: Master-Poe.}

Dread Queen Rey smiles. “Good,” she says. “Everyone should have someone to protect them.”

Poe tries to sigh with relief as unobtrusively as possible, and then makes the mistake of meeting Consort Finn’s eyes. They are dark and warm and deep as the space between stars, and Poe’s breath catches in his throat. Oh - right. He’s here as a gift for this person, this beautiful man with a smile like a sunrise and the heart of a queen in his hands.

“Tell us about the rebuilding of the New Republic,” Finn invites as a handful of servants bring the meal in on covered trays, and Poe takes a deep breath and launches into a story about Leia intimidating half a dozen recalcitrant senators into sensibility. He makes Finn laugh twice, and Rey smile once, and takes that as a victory. If he’s amusing, he’s more valuable, right? He’s giving them a good price for their aid. He’s...being a good gift.

He segues from the rebuilding of the New Republic to the last battle against the First Order almost without noticing, reaches out to use spare utensils to map the battle on the tablecloth, and Finn catches one of his hands, strong fingers curving around Poe’s wrist, warm and gentle and inexorable. Poe’s voice falters, but Rey says, “Go on,” and Poe manages to pick up the thread of his story again, to nudge the silverware into the right configurations one-handed while Finn runs a gentle thumb over his knuckles and watches him with those dark, warm, dangerous eyes. BB-8 leans against Poe’s leg comfortingly. Rey asks questions, clever and pointed, as though she can see the battle playing out before her eyes.

And then dinner is over. Poe braces himself mentally for the order that is sure to come - he’s done worse things for worse reasons, he can deal with a night in a beautiful man’s bed (though it won’t be just one night, will it, it’s every night for the foreseeable future, it’s whatever Finn wants forever, because that was the price Poe said he’d pay) - and Finn lets go of his wrist, and Rey sits back in her chair and says, “We’ll bid you goodnight, then, Poe Dameron.”

Poe manages to stand and bow and bid them both goodnight in turn, retreat from the dining room and follow Mari through the halls back to his absurdly large suite, without letting his vast relief show - or not much. He hopes.

It’s the price he said he’d pay, and he _will_ pay it, willingly, but - the brief reprieve is precious nonetheless.

{BB-8 protected Designation: Master-Poe,} the little droid says proudly, and Poe grins down at it.

“Yeah, you did, buddy,” he says warmly, and spends the rest of his evening using some of the abundance of droid-cleaning materials to make sure BB-8 sparkles like the treasure it is.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, he meets his new bodyservant, which is disconcerting for everyone involved. Balit is a young man of Mari’s species, his green hair much shorter and less intricately braided than the Assistant to the Chamberlain’s, who was responsible for laying out Poe’s clothes the night before and is deeply distressed to find Poe attempting to locate his own clothing that morning. Poe, in his turn, is not at all comfortable with having a bodyservant; and BB-8, fresh from its victory in protecting Poe the night before, makes the whole scene even more chaotic by whirling around both of them brandishing its little taser and beeping aggressively.

Eventually Poe manages to calm his droid down, and calm his _bodyservant_ down, and come to some sort of an agreement. Balit can choose Poe’s clothing and keep his rooms clean, but Poe will wash himself, thank you very much, and doesn’t need help dressing. Balit agrees with a sigh that says clear as words that he thinks Poe is being quite unreasonable, but Poe is a grown man and can dress himself, and also - also there are going to be enough strange people touching him, in the days to come. One more might well be one too many.

Balit produces another set of beautiful clothing, this time in a deep blue that glows like the sky just after sunset on a desert planet, and leaves Poe to get dressed; and when Poe is ready for the day, Mari arrives and declares that she is to take Poe on a tour of the palace and its grounds. Which is better than being confined to even such luxurious rooms as these.

It’s a lovely palace, Poe must admit, all broad hallways and rich fabrics and people bustling about looking contented with their lives. Mari finishes the tour in the gardens, which are both extensive and truly marvelous.

“Her Majesty likes plants,” Mari explains when Poe makes admiring noises at the profusion of greenery. She leads him along a winding path that ends in a tall, elegant ironwork gate; the guard at the gate nods to her and opens it, and Mari shoos Poe and BB-8 through, the gate closing behind them.

Poe gulps and turns, and there’s Consort Finn, kneeling in the rich dirt of what must be the Dread Queen’s private garden, weeding a bed of shockingly orange flowers and humming to himself.

Poe’s not sure what to do, honestly. He’s got no particular skill at gardening, and he suspects it would be as much as his life is worth to mar any of the well-tended plants in this particular garden. There’s a bench off to one side, and he sits down, a little awkwardly, BB-8 settling in front of his feet like a guard dog. Consort Finn doesn’t stop what he’s doing, and Poe takes this unlooked-for opportunity to really get a good impression of the other man while he’s not being distracted by dinner or the Dread Queen or trying to drum up support for the Resistance.

Finn is about Poe’s own height, but broader in the shoulder, brawny in a way that suggests military training to Poe’s eyes. His skin is dark as the soil he’s kneeling on, a rich brown that Poe thinks is really quite astonishingly lovely. His hair is cropped short, and there are golden rings glinting in his ears, more gold adorning him at throat and wrists, all of the jewelry intricate and beautiful as Poe has ever seen. His clothing is far finer even than Poe’s, covered in gorgeous embroidery and draping smoothly over his form. He’s graceful as he tugs the weeds out of the ground, piling them beside him; this is clearly a task he has done many times.

In another situation, Poe might make a pass at him, actually; beautiful, competent people are _exactly_ Poe’s type. And if - when - Poe ends up in his bed, it’ll probably be a good idea to concentrate on that, to try as hard as he can to focus on the fact that Consort Finn _is_ a stunningly beautiful man who in another time and place Poe would take to bed with perfect willingness.

Make the best of it, as it were.

*

Finn finishes weeding the flowers after a few minutes and stands, dusting his hands off, then tosses the uprooted weeds into a waiting bucket and turns to smile at Poe. Poe does his best to smile back.

Finn joins him on the bench, capturing one of Poe’s hands and rubbing his thumb over Poe’s knuckles, but not touching Poe otherwise. Poe makes no objection - it’s an innocuous touch, and in any case there’s no objection to be made. He has a price to pay.

“Rey’s always liked plants,” Finn says, leaning back against the wall and smiling at the riotous green of the garden. “I didn’t know anything about them until I got here, but it’s nice, you know, to be able to make something grow.”

Poe nods. “I prefer fixing things, actually,” he replies. “Droids, or ships, or anything. But I think it’s the same impulse: making something _better_.”

“I think you’re right,” Finn says, smiling at Poe. “You should talk to Rey about fixing things; she’s really good at it. She doesn’t have as much time to do it as she’d like, though, since she’s always busy queening.”

“There’s a rumor that she used to be a scavenger,” Poe says, keeping his tone light in case this is a sensitive topic. Finn shrugs and nods.

“Yep, she was a scavenger on Jakku.” He glances at Poe, and his fingers tighten very slightly on Poe’s wrist. “I was a Stormtrooper.”

Poe goes still, the stillness of a trapped animal. He can’t think of what to say. A Stormtrooper, one of the First Order’s perfectly loyal soldiers - how kriffed is Poe, exactly, at this moment? What vengeance might a former Stormtrooper want to take on a pilot who’s killed some untold number of his comrades?

“I defected,” Finn says, softly. “Ended up here. Rey found me, and laid claim to me. And it’s because I knew what the First Order was like from the _inside_ that I managed to convince Rey to send forces with you to oppose them. If anyone knows how evil they were, it’s me.”

Poe takes a deep breath, then another. He has no reason to believe Finn is lying to him - what purpose would that serve, anyhow? Poe’s here regardless of what Finn says or doesn’t say. So that’s probably the truth, or at least an abridged version of it.

“That’s good to hear,” he says at last. “But how did you end up as a Stormtrooper in the first place?”

Finn laughs mirthlessly. “The same way all Stormtroopers do,” he says. “I was taken as an infant and raised to be a soldier.”

Poe manages to make it to the bucket full of weeds before he retches. He’s never thought, before, about where Stormtroopers come from - had assumed they were recruited as adults, like mercenaries or the New Republic army. This, though - this is a foulness, an _evil_ , that he had not thought even the First Order would stoop to. He thinks of all the Stormtroopers he has killed, white armor concealing stolen children, and retches again. Beside him, BB-8 beeps distress. Finn’s hand is warm on his back, gentle and comforting.

Eventually Poe runs out of things to throw up, sits back on his heels weakly. Finn hands him a handkerchief and a bottle of water, and Poe takes them gratefully, rinses his mouth and then drains the bottle, wipes sweat from his face and then drapes an arm around a nearly frantic BB-8 in comfort. “Hey there, buddy, I’m fine,” he assures the little droid.

{Designation: Consort-Finn injured Designation: Master-Poe?} BB-8 demands. The designations it’s using for Finn and Rey are the product of the entire previous evening’s negotiations between Poe and his droid, because Poe does _not_ want BB-8 to offend the Dread Queen Rey by calling her something less flattering than her title.

“No, buddy, just...told me something that didn’t sit well,” Poe assures his droid. “I’ll be alright, I think.”

“I didn’t realize it wasn’t common knowledge,” Finn says, and Poe blinks at him, finds him looking down at Poe with deep concern etched on his face.

“No, we - we didn’t know,” Poe says softly.

Finn sighs, offers Poe a hand up. Poe takes it, and is not surprised when Finn’s fingers curl around his wrist again. “It’s probably better you _didn’t_ know,” Finn says wearily. “The ones like me, who wanted to get out - they were mostly found pretty much as soon as they had a disloyal thought, and reconditioned or decommissioned immediately. I only got out because I ran as soon as I realized I needed to. So even if you’d offered amnesty, they wouldn’t have taken you up on it. Most of them trusted everything the officers told us, and were happy to be the fist of the First Order.”

“I would have liked to give the opportunity to those who managed to slip through the cracks,” Poe points out.

Finn smiles at him. “Well. Send word to your General - she’s in charge of the prisoners, isn’t she? And I know you took quite a few.”

“I’ll do that,” Poe says, immensely grateful that there _is_ something he can do. “Where would I go to make a long-distance comm call?”

Finn grins. “Come on through here,” he says, leading Poe to an unobtrusive door in the palace wall of the garden. “These are our private chambers, and we’ve got our own interstellar comm. You can use it.”

“Thank you,” Poe says, gaping a little at the sheer opulence of the rooms he’s being tugged through. They’re far, _far_ richer than his own, every surface gleaming with precious stones or intricately carved wood or padded with embroidered tapestries and rugs so lovely it seems a shame to step on them. Finn seems to suit the beautiful rooms, another beautiful adornment for the Queen’s pleasure, but Poe feels distinctly out of place.

BB-8, trundling along in Poe’s wake, is a blessed spot of normality.

Poe’s brief conversation with Leia is just as heart-wrenching as he expects it to be - Leia has to take a moment to go and throw up, and vows that she’ll see to it that the captured Stormtroopers be treated as the brainwashed child soldiers that they are. And then, just before she ends the call, she looks Poe over carefully and says, “And you - you’re okay?”

Poe is wearing nicer clothing than he ever has before. He’s sleeping in what is honestly the most comfortable bed he’s ever encountered, the food put before him at meals is astonishingly wonderful, he’s completely unhurt so far, and - most importantly - he’s here to pay a price he knew he’d have to pay.

“Yeah,” he tells Leia, giving her his best cocky smile. “I’m fine.”

He’s not sure she believes him, but he’s grateful when she only nods and ends the call.

*

“Finn says you liked my garden,” Rey says at dinner that night, smiling at Poe across the table.

“It’s gorgeous,” Poe replies honestly. “You must have plants from half a hundred planets.”

“More like two hundred,” Rey says, grinning smugly. “I’ve even got Alderaanian orchids, and they’re practically extinct.”

Poe makes appropriate awed noises, and thinks that if Leia ever comes here - if he can ever trust Leia to be in the same room with Rey, when Leia was so furious over the bargain Poe had made that she almost forbade him from _flying_ \- he’ll ask if he can show Leia the orchids. Maybe even see if Rey would give Leia a few, priceless seeds.

“He says he fixes things,” Finn says, grinning at the Dread Queen, and she puts her chin in her hand and gives Poe an intrigued look.

“What sorts of things?” she asks.

“Well,” Poe says, “during the war I mostly worked on my X-Wing…”

Rey knows as much about ships and their innards as the best mechanic Poe’s ever met, and the rest of dinner is given over to a discussion of how best to deal with half a dozen kinds of problems that can arise when you’re working on something so temperamental as a fighter plane. Poe’s caught up in the conversation, enthusiastic and delighted, but not so much that he doesn’t notice when Finn catches his hand again, fingers circling Poe’s wrist gentle and implacable. Rey notices, too, and for a second her enthusiastic smile grows teeth and a sharp, hungry edge to it; Poe’s mouth goes dry and he tries hard to turn his attention back to the conversation, and not to think about what that hungry expression might portend.

But after dinner they send him back to his rooms again, though it takes Finn a moment to let go of Poe’s wrist, his thumb rubbing slow and sensual over Poe’s knuckles. Poe can’t help shivering with it, and he doesn’t think he’s imagining the spark of lust in Finn’s eyes when he does. Still, that’s all there is, that single gentle touch and the heat in Finn’s eyes and the hunger in Rey’s smile, and Poe goes back to his rooms with BB-8 at his heels and manages to get to sleep at a perfectly reasonable hour.


	3. Chapter 3

He’s woken by Balit bringing in a tray of breakfast, and when he’s eaten and dressed in what Balit lays out for him, his bodyservant leads him through the palace to - wonder of wonders - a mechanic’s workshop, by far the largest one Poe’s ever seen. Every tool gleams, and the battered carcass of a two-seater TIE fighter takes up half the room. Poe has to hold himself back from rushing over to examine every inch of the beautiful, deadly machine.

“Her Majesty says you’re welcome to use anything in the room,” Balit informs Poe, and Poe manages to keep his head long enough to give some sort of graceful response. And then Balit leaves him there, and Poe spends a little while just wandering around admiring the quality of the tools and materials in what _must_ be the Dread Queen’s private workshop, and then he spends the rest of the morning examining the TIE fighter. He’s always wanted to fly one, and if he and Rey can get this one into working order, maybe he’ll be allowed to take it up.

He’s squirming out from under the TIE fighter when he realizes that Finn is right behind him. Poe freezes for just a moment, up on his knees with his ass in the air, wondering if Finn is going to choose to just pin him up against the beautiful, crippled piece of machinery and fuck him right there - and honestly in other circumstances that might even be a fantasy come true, Poe’s always had a thing for the sheer ruthless beauty of TIE fighters - but Finn just backs up a step, chuckling, and offers Poe a hand up when he’s finally out from under the ship. Poe takes it, grinning a little ruefully as his wrist is gently claimed again.

“Rey says she thinks she can get it spaceworthy again,” Finn says mildly.

“Yeah, I think she’s right,” Poe agrees. “It’ll take time and a lot of work, though.”

“Rey’s not afraid of work,” Finn says, smiling. “Neither am I. And if you wanted to help, she’d be fine with that.”

Poe has to wonder if there’s another layer to this conversation, one he’s not quite catching, but he says, “I’d love to.”

“For now, though, will you join me for lunch?” Finn asks politely.

“Sure,” Poe says, then glances down at his hands. “Maybe I should wash up first, though.”

“I’ll find you a washroom,” Finn says, and Poe finds himself led a short walk through the corridors until they reach the royal apartments. Finn ushers Poe into the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and Poe washes his hands with the mechanic’s soap beside the sink, grinning a little at the idea of a queen needing to get engine oil off her hands - catches sight of himself in the mirror, grinning and disheveled and wearing a shirt that really does seem to show off his collarbones more than he might have thought necessary - and realizes, suddenly, that he’s alone in the royal apartments with the man whose _gift_ he is.

Ah.

Well. He’s had two full days, and he’s...he knows what he promised. And honestly Finn’s been very patient and rather kind and even sort of sweet. Poe takes a deep breath and finishes washing his hands, and then goes out into the main room and leans down to talk to BB-8.

“We’re just going to be having lunch - it’ll be kind of boring,” he says quietly. “Why don’t you go explore the palace a little without me? I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

BB-8 bloops dubiously, but when Poe opens the door it goes whirring out into the corridor, and Poe closes the door again and turns to see Finn standing near a little table, regarding him with dark and hungry eyes.

Poe takes another deep breath and crosses the room to stand in front of Finn. “You’ve been...patient,” he says softly. “Thank you for that.”

“Honestly I thought it would take longer,” Finn says, smiling. His teeth are very white.

“I know what I owe,” Poe says, the words strangely heavy on his tongue. “I pay my debts.” He shrugs and raises his hands, palms up and open, meeting Finn’s dark eyes squarely and offering - everything. “Here I am.”

Finn’s hands clasp gently around his wrists like a circuit closing, a promise kept. “Here you are,” he says, low and sweet. “Now, what shall I do with you?”

It’s pretty clearly a rhetorical question, and Poe’s mouth is too dry to answer anyway. And even if he _could_ speak, the answer is self-evident: anything Finn likes.

What Finn likes, apparently, is to lean in and kiss Poe, surprisingly soft and gentle, and Poe could make this difficult, could stand stiff and cold and uncomfortable, but - this is the price he said he’d pay. And Finn _is_ one of the most attractive men he’s ever seen. And Finn has been patient, has been kind, has not pressed for what he is entitled to -

Poe leans into the kiss, opens his mouth for Finn’s curious tongue, and lets himself moan when Finn transfers both of Poe’s wrists into one broad hand and tangles the other hand in Poe’s hair to pull his head very gently back, kisses his way down Poe’s throat soft and sweet and careful, sets his teeth ever-so-gently into the curve of Poe’s neck and shoulder and bites just barely hard enough to sting.

“Yes,” Finn says softly, breath warm against Poe’s throat. “Moan for me. Let me hear you.”

Finn steers Poe backwards across the thick carpet until Poe’s shoulders thump gently against a tapestried wall, tugs Poe’s arms up over his head and pins them there with one hand, slides the other up under Poe’s heavy, soft shirt to rest warm and huge on Poe’s chest. Poe lets himself arch into it, laces his fingers together and leans back against the thick padding of the tapestry and shivers under Finn’s hungry gaze.

“So beautiful,” Finn says quietly, and his fingers slide across Poe’s nipple, making Poe hiss between his teeth. Finn laughs, a low dark chuckle full of satisfaction, and does it again, pinches gently and grins more broadly at Poe’s high, thin moan. “Rey gives me such beautiful things,” Finn murmurs, leaning in so his breath brushes Poe’s ear, “and I take good care of them.” And - his hand is gentle where it traps Poe’s wrists against the wall, warm against his skin, his other hand careful as it explores Poe’s chest, and Poe can believe it, can believe that now that he is one of Finn’s beautiful things, Finn will take good care of him. It’s oddly reassuring. Poe had been worried, in the back of his mind, that he might be here to be used up and thrown away, a toy to be played with and broken and discarded, but no - he’s one of Finn’s beautiful things, to be cherished.

He’d rather be flying free, but if he has to pay this price, to be another gift that the Dread Queen has given her Consort, well, it’s far better to be a valuable and valued gift than otherwise.

Poe relaxes into the grip of Finn’s hand, the press of his leg between Poe’s, lets his head fall back to bare his throat, and can’t help smiling at the soft, hungry sound that this elicits. “So beautiful,” Finn says again, and then his teeth are scraping gently against the side of Poe’s neck, his fingers pinching sudden and perfect on Poe’s nipple, and Poe moans full-throated and loud into the silent room.

“Good,” Finn murmurs, presses up against Poe so Poe has something to rub against, broad shoulders blocking out the room, warmth like a furnace even through their clothing. Poe spreads his legs a little more, ruts up against Finn’s hip half-desperately, and takes a certain odd pleasure in the groan that rumbles from Finn’s chest.

“Someday very soon,” Finn tells Poe quietly, voice as much felt as heard, “I am going to spread you out on my bed and fuck you till you scream for me, till you’ve come so many times you’re utterly wrung out, till you can’t do anything but moan with pleasure. Show me how beautiful you are when you come, Poe Dameron; let me see you. Come for me.”

Poe lets his eyes fall closed and tells himself it’s a lover saying those filthy, wonderful things - which is far easier than it should be, actually - and ruts up against Finn’s steady, sturdy form, and comes with a low, pleading cry that Finn kisses from his mouth.

*

Finn doesn’t let Poe clean himself up; he strips Poe’s heavy, expensive clothing away with gentle hands, tosses the underwear into a hamper in the bathroom and sits Poe on the side of yet another enormous tub and wipes him clean with a warm washcloth as gently as Poe could desire. It’s...it’s a little like being some cherished plaything, actually, one with a very conscientious owner. And when Poe is clean, Finn helps him back into his clothes - all but the underwear - and grins.

“I think I like knowing you’re not wearing anything under these,” he says, twitching Poe’s pants straight carefully. “And this way your very protective droid won’t try to kill me for besmirching your virtue.”

Poe honestly can’t help laughing at that, because yeah, BB-8 might actually try.

And then they eat lunch. Thankfully, it’s all things that haven’t suffered at all for being left out for half an hour while Poe got himself ravished. And over lunch Finn talks about the garden, the trellises that are his handiwork and the weeks of negotiating which were required to get a certain kind of flower Rey really wanted, and then he walks Poe back to the enormous workshop and leaves him beside the TIE fighter with a soft, undemanding kiss.

Poe feels like he should maybe feel worse about having just essentially sold himself, but - well - he sold himself months ago, for the funds and fighters needed to destroy the First Order. This was just the first payment, and it wasn’t so bad. Honestly, if Poe had _chosen_ Finn as a lover, then he’d be having no qualms at all right now. It’s only that inescapable knowledge that whether he’d liked it or not had absolutely no bearing on whether it was going to _happen_ that keeps the whole interlude from being one of simple pleasure.

And even then, Poe did get to choose, at least a little bit. He offered. That’s...something. Poe’s not sure _what_ it is, whether it makes him feel better that he had even that scrap of control or worse that he gave in so easily, but it’s something.

BB-8 comes rolling in the door and whirls in tight circles around Poe where he’s investigating a hole in the TIE fighter’s side. {Designation: Master-Poe is unharmed?}

“Yeah, buddy,” Poe says, patting the little droid’s head as it whirls by. “I’m good. Don’t worry so.”

{Designation: Master-Poe is reckless and prone to injury,} BB-8 beeps sternly. {BB-8 will worry if BB-8 wants to worry.}

Poe can’t help laughing, leaning against the broken TIE fighter and giggling helplessly until he slides down it and gathers BB-8 into an embrace.

*

At dinner that night, Rey looks Poe up and down and smiles, small and sharp and pleased. “Finn tells me you had a very... _stimulating_...conversation over lunch,” she observes smugly.

“...So we did,” says Poe carefully, suddenly wondering whether the Dread Queen is going to be jealous of her Consort’s interest in him, whether this is a game they play: the Queen giving her Consort a beautiful toy, and then breaking it when the Consort grows weary of it, to prove that she alone holds her Consort’s heart.

But she smiles a little more widely, and leans against Finn’s shoulder, and says, “Good. I’m glad.” And then, putting Poe’s heart in his throat again, “Perhaps one of these days I shall have time to join you for one of those discussions.”

Finn smiles down at her, winds a lock of her hair around one finger. “I’d like that,” he says quietly, and then, so low that Poe can barely hear it, “He’s beautiful; I want to show you how lovely he is for me.”

“Mmmm,” Rey agrees, smiling up at her Consort.

“He likes your TIE fighter,” Finn adds, louder, and Rey turns a speculative look on Poe.

“What do you think of it?” she asks curiously.

“I think it’s fixable,” Poe says immediately, and the rest of dinner is taken over by a detailed discussion of what, precisely, needs to be done to the TIE fighter to get it back in working order. Rey knows her stuff, has good ideas about the order in which to do things, and Poe enjoys brainstorming with her, enjoys it more when she beams at him and praises his abilities.

“Tell you what,” she says, as dinner ends. “You help me get that thing working again, and I’ll give you first flight.”

Poe’s breath catches in his throat. Flying again - flying a _TIE fighter_ , which he’s wanted to do for _decades_ \- but most importantly, getting back in the air, back to that freedom -

“Deal,” he tells the Dread Queen, grinning. “Time I’m done with it, you won’t even be able to tell it was ever damaged.”

“Deal,” says Rey, reaching across the table, and Poe shakes on it, feeling better than he has in a long, long while.

**Author's Note:**

> ON HIATUS INDEFINITELY.


End file.
